A new study suggests that vitamin C administered intravenously (IV) enhances the efficacy of chemotherapy drugs in destroying cancer cells.
Researchers from the University of Kansas Medical Center concluded that the injection of IV vitamin C in the human and mice with ovarian cancer during chemotherapy sessions aided in the elimination of ovarian cancer cells while leaving normal cells undamaged.
For the initial phase of the experiment, the researchers exposed human ovarian cancer cells to vitamin C and discovered that the DNA of the cancer cells got damaged thus leading to its death. Normal cells, on the other hand, were left healthy and undamaged.
They then performed the same experiment on mice with induced ovarian cancer and found that the introduction of vitamin C either stopped the growth of tumors or helped reducing the size of the tumor.
For the final phase of the experiment, the researchers recruited 27 patients with either stage III or stage IV ovarian cancer. Some of the participants underwent chemotherapy with IV vitamin C, while some underwent chemotherapy only.
The researchers discovered after the final experiment that those who received chemotherapy in conjunction with IV vitamin C experienced decreased toxicity of the brain, vital organs and bone marrow. The interval between the time before the cancer relapsed and progressed was also longer at about 8.75 months, compared to participants who only received chemotherapy alone.
"In cell tissue and animal models of cancer, we saw when you add IV vitamin C it seems to augment the killing effect of chemotherapy drugs on cancer cells," said study co-author Dr. Jeanne Drisko, director of integrative medicine at the University of Kansas Medical Center, to HealthDay.
"If you can get your blood levels of vitamin C very high, it gets driven into the space around the cancer cells. In that space, it's converted into hydrogen peroxide. It's very similar to what our white blood cells do. They create hydrogen peroxide to fight infection," Drisko added.
This study was published on the Feb. 5 issue of Science Translational Medicine.
